During the operations involved with erecting a building, or other structure, there are a wide variety of tasks performed every day which utilize positioning information and positioning tools. This includes moving soil, pouring foundations and footers, erecting walls and roofs, and installing interior systems such as HVAC, plumbing, electrical, sprinklers, as well as interior walls and finishing. Typically, these are manually performed operations using tape measures, electronic layout tools (e.g., plumb lasers and digital levels), distance meters, and even survey-type instruments. These tools are used to layout the dimensions of the structures being built. Additionally, these layout tools are often operated by a single user who marks the position of a particular feature while another user installs or builds the feature at the marked position. For example, an operator of an electronic plumb laser marks positions on a wall where holes are to be drilled. Later, another worker actually drills the holes at the indicated positions.
When a project is completed, the final construction drawings are generated which are intended to show where features of a building are actually located. For example, during the course of erecting a building, pipes may have to be re-routed around a structural member. As a result, the actual building is not reflected in the original construction drawings. When this is not shown on the original construction drawings, they are amended on the fly so that they show the features of the building as built. Again, this is often performed manually so that the final construction drawings are an accurate representation of the building as completed.